Vera, the Medium Part 15

"I know," she went on, "just how you tried to impose upon my uncle--how you tried to rob me, and tonight I have invited the reporters to my house to give them the facts."

With a cry Vera ran to her.

"No!" she begged, "you won't do that. You must not do that!"

"Let her talk!" growled Vance. "Let her talk! She's funny."

"No!" commanded Vera. Her voice rang with the distress. "She cannot do that!" She turned to Miss Coates. "We haven't hurt you," she pleaded; "we haven't taken your money. I promise you," she cried, "we will never see Mr. Hallowell again. I beg of you--"

Vance indignantly caught her by the arm and drew her back. "You don't beg nothing of her!" he cried.

"I do," Vera answered wildly. She caught Vance's hand in both of hers.

"I have a chance, Paul," she entreated, "don't force me through it again. I can't stand the shame of it again." Once more she appealed to the visitor. "Don't!" she begged. "Don't shame me."

But the eyes of the older girl, blind to everything save what, as she saw it, was her duty, showed no consideration.

Vera's hands, trembling on his arm, drove Vance to deeper anger. He turned savagely upon Miss Coates.

"You haven't lost anything yet, have you?" he demanded. "She hasn't hurt you, has she? If it's revenge you want," he cried insolently, "why don't you throw vitriol on the girl?"

"Revenge!" exclaimed Miss Coates indignantly. "It is my duty. My public duty. I'm not alone in this; I am acting with the District Attorney.

It is our duty." She turned suddenly and called, "Mr. Winthrop, Mr.

Winthrop!"

For the first time Vera saw, under the gas jet, at the farther end of the hall, the figures of Mannie and Winthrop.

"No, no!" she protested, "I beg of you," she cried hysterically. "I've got a chance. If you print this thing tomorrow, I'll never have a chance again. Don't take it away from me." Impulsively her arms reached out in an eager final appeal. "I'm down," she said simply, "give me a chance to get up."

When Miss Coates came to give battle to the Vances, she foresaw the interview might be unpleasant. It was proving even more unpleasant than she had expected, but her duty seemed none the less obvious.

"You should have thought of that," she said, "before you were found out."

For an instant Vera stood motionless, staring, unconsciously holding the att.i.tude of appeal. But when, by these last words, she recognized that her humiliation could go no further, with an inarticulate exclamation she turned away.

"The public has the right to know," declared Miss Coates, "the sort of people you are. I have the record of each of you--"

From the hall Winthrop had entered quickly, but, disregarding him, Vance broke in upon the speaker, savagely, defiantly.

"Print em, then!" he shouted, "print em!"

"I mean to," declared Miss Coates, "yours, and hers, she--"

Winthrop placed himself in front of her, shutting her off from the others. He spoke in an earnest whisper.

"Don't!" he begged. "She has asked for a chance. Give her a chance."

Miss Coates scorned to speak in whispers.

"She has had a chance," she protested loudly. "She's had a chance for nine years; and she's chosen to be a charlatan and a cheat, and--" The angry woman hesitated, and then flung the word--"and a thief!"

In the silence that followed no one turned toward Vera; but as it continued unbroken each raised his eyes and looked at her.

They saw her drawn to her full height; the color flown from her face, her deep, brooding eyes flas.h.i.+ng. She was like one by some religious fervor lifted out of herself, exalted. When she spoke her voice was low, tense. It vibrated with tremendous, wondering indignation.

"Do you know who I am?" she asked. She spoke like one in a trance. "Do you know who you are threatening with your police and your laws? I am a priestess! I am a medium between the souls of this world and the next.

I am Vera--the Truth! And I mean," the girl cried suddenly, harshly, flinging out her arm, "that you shall hear the truth! Tonight I will bring your mother from the grave to speak it to you!"

With a swift, sweeping gesture she pointed to the door. "Take those people away!" she cried.

The eyes of Winthrop were filled with pity. "Vera!" he said, "Vera!"

For an instant, against the tenderness and reproach in his voice the girl held herself motionless; and then, falling upon the shoulder of Mrs. Vance, burst into girlish, heart-broken tears.

"Take them away," she sobbed, "take them away!"

Mannie Day and Vance closed in upon the visitors, and motioning them before them, drove them from the room.

Part III

The departure of the District Attorney and Miss Coates left Vera free to consider how serious, if she carried out her threat, the consequences might be. But of this chance she did not avail herself. Instead, with nervous zeal she began to prepare for her masquerade. It was as though her promise to Winthrop to abandon her old friends had filled her with remorse, and that she now, by an extravagance of loyalty, was endeavoring to make amends.

At nine o'clock, with the Vances, she arrived at the house of Mr.

Hallowell. Already, to the same place, a wagon had carried the cabinet, a parlor organ, and a dozen of those camp chairs that are a.s.sociated with house weddings and funerals; and while, in the library, Vance and Mannie arranged these to their liking, on the third floor Vera, with Mrs. Vance, waited for that moment to arrive when Vance considered her entrance would be the most effective.

This entrance was to be made through the doorway that opened from the hall on the second story into the library. To the right of this door, in an angle of two walls, was the cabinet, and on the left, the first of the camp chairs. These had been placed in a semicircle that stretched across the room, and ended at the parlor organ. The door from Mr.

Hallowell's bedroom opened directly upon the semicircle at the point most distant from the cabinet. In the centre of the semicircle Vance had placed the invalid's arm chair.

Vance, in his manner as professional and undisturbed as a photographer focussing his camera and arranging his screens, was explaining to Judge Gaylor the setting of his stage. The judge was an unwilling audience.

Unlike the showman, for him the occasion held only terrors. He was driven by misgivings, swept by sudden panics. He scowled at the cabinet, intruding upon the privacy of the room where for years, without the aid of accessories, by his brains alone, he had brought Mr. Hallowell almost to the point of abject submission to his wishes. He turned upon Vance with bitter self-disgust.

"So, I've got down as low as this, have I?" he demanded.

Vance heard him, undisturbed.

"I must ask you," he said, briskly, "to help me keep the people just as I seat them. They will be in this half-circle facing the cabinet and holding hands. Those we know are against us," he explained, "will have one of my friends, Professor Strombergk, or Mrs. Marsh, or my wife, on each side of him. If there should be any attempt to rush the cabinet, we must get there first. I will be outside the cabinet working the rappings, the floating music, and the astral bodies." At the sight of the expression these words brought to the face of Gaylor, Vance permitted himself the shadow of a smile. "I can take care of myself,"

he went on, "but remember--Vera must not be caught outside the cabinet!

When the lights go up, she must be found with the ropes still tied."

Gaylor turned from him with an exclamation of disgust.

"Pah!" he muttered. "It's a h.e.l.l of a business!"

Vance continued unmoved. "And, another thing," he said, "about these lights; this switch throws them all off, doesn't it?" He pressed a b.u.t.ton on the left of the door, and the electric lights in the walls and under a green shade on the library table faded and disappeared, leaving the room, save for the light from the hall, in darkness.

"That's the way we want it," said the showman.